Spiritual reflections, family, home educating typical and special needs children ~
Dedicated to: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn.
"Rejoice in hope, persevere in tribulations, be constant in prayer." Romans 12:12
Certe bonum certanem! Fight the good fight!

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Photocopy c. 2013 Jamie Laubacher

Sunday, May 15, 2011

..there were four little rabbits..and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter….

This year at our local home school co-op I’m going to teach two classes for the K – 3 grades. The first class, beginning in the Fall, is a sing-a-along enrichment of folk songs, patriotic songs and Christian tunes, hopefully with hand motions (assisted by other moms); I can’t really “motion” when playing guitar and leading singing…I’m not an octopus :) Although I should be! Think how much more I could get done!

The next class I teach won’t be until the spring session of the 2012 school season and it is a Beatrix Potter Literature enrichment class, based on the short tales of Peter Rabbit and Friends. I originally came across this course when our oldest son was just in Kindergarten. In the beginning…..we bought two pre-packaged curriculums from two different providers before we got on the path of Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum and the syllabi that accompanies each grade level * [more on syllabi below this post].

The first pre-packaged grade was Pre-K and it was from Our Lady of the Rosary…..our son was completely finished with everything in the box by mid winter……I decided not to use them again the next year for Kindergarten, instead I purchased the K boxed items from Calvert Home School. It was wonderful because everything really came in one box – pencils, paints, paper for water color painting, all the books and the lesson plans. We did better in K and went further, but still our son had this curriculum completed by the time spring hit. Thus, the transition to utilizing the suggestions and curricula in Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum per grade level, and it was in accord with our Christian faith and I wanted a program that integrated our Catholic beliefs and history within it.

But, certainly not all was a wash with our first two trial years of using a boxed curriculum; one wonderful find was that Calvert had this great little enrichment program written for the Peter Rabbit tales and I made the extra purchase in the spring of Kindergarten that year, to finish out the year, and we went through the wonderful tales of Beatrix Potter and felt we had completed a good year. The stories were refreshing and delightful, the pictures beautiful, and the vocabulary fun!…perambulator…(baby stroller). And as it is with most unit type studies, it involved more than just literature enrichment, but art enrichment as well.

So, this year, I will introduce the young students (including my youngest son among them) of our co-op to Beatrix Potter and her Peter Rabbit and friends. You can see the teacher guide at this link:

Syllabus is a latin word for a lesson plan – instructions. The enrollment program affiliate of Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum is: Mother of Divine Grace home study and it utilizes the syllabi resource so nicely whether you are enrolled with their program or not – you can purchase a syllabus per grade level from several different providers. What is described per grade level in the book Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum (Dyocc) is packed into one great syllabus per grade level from K through 8th grade. From 9th through 12th syllabi are available but as separate disciplines, i.e. Algebra I, Latin I, Earth Science, Chemistry, Medieval Spanish & English History, Advanced American Government & Economics, and so forth.

The syllabus has kept us on track and is great preparation for college work, as I know our son in his first year of college was handed a syllabus per each course from his different professors. He felt comfortable with this system already and loved referring to it for deadlines, and instructions and the entire schedule for the semester.

2 comments:

Wow - I wish we were allowed to join that co-op! My little boys would LOVE the Peter Rabbit lessons. We read those stories nightly. Benjamin just LOVES that there is a Benjamin Bunny, and that he has a cousin named Peter, because so does he! He just thinks that is such a miracle and that it must be about him and his baby cousin. So funny! We are going to continue to do the MODG syllabi with Luke and then Ben in K, until they hit 2nd grade, and then I think I will enroll them. I just couldn't part with the lovely, sweet MODG kindergarten and 1st grade syllabi. They encompass just about everything I love about homeschooling. After that it all goes downhill for me - lol - not entirely, but a lot!

You never know what changes down the road might happen with the home school co-op - already they have to look at "partial" enrollment in the public school and still honoring that you are a home schooler because of the new passing of allowing home schoolers to participate in sports here. Really Modg is not that difficult...hey, if I can do it..er ahem....seriously, it's flexible and you can tweak where needed...By 6th grade I start to see it come together and begin to layer itself along the way up the grades..before that it seems to gently unfold...That is so cute about Ben and Benjamin Bunny and Peter...Such great little stories!